Chapter-5. The decision

[Xanthea]

Luna Meesa’s face lost all color.

“What? Alpha…”

He raised his hand, silencing her.

“We don’t have time for arguments. It’s an order and I expect you to follow it.”

With that, he left the room.

Luna Meesa shot me an outraged gaze. She flounced in front of me and slapped me across my face.

The stinging pain pulsed through my cheek like a thousand needles, overwhelming my senses.

“Are you happy now?” She snarled at me. “You’ve finally destroyed my family! You and your filthy blooded mother!”

I peered blankly at the floor. A mix of emotions crashed upon me, strangling my heart with their unforgiving claws.

Her grip tightened on my broken arm as I stifled my cries into mere whimpers. For the first time in my life, I felt as if I deserved the pain.

The royal doctor lowered his gaze. It was nothing new for him. After all, he was the one to heal me for eighteen years after every time they broke me. He never asked about my wounds. All he did was treat me, keeping his mouth shut just like today.

She grabbed my cheeks with her other hand, her nails dug into my cheeks. My eyes stung with tears at the pain. I clenched my jaws to arrest the sob in my throat.

“Useless and burdensome, as you always were…”

“Mother!” Nathalia burst into the room, breaking into tears. “I don’t want to marry them! I don’t want to die! Mother, please do something!”

I had expected Nathalia to unleash her anger on me, but she clung to Luna, sobbing bitterly. We shared the same fear in that moment and maybe that was what bound us.

Nothing really matters when you can see your death right on your doorstep. Especially not when death was coming to marry you and take you away to the underworld as an offering.

Another agonizing hour passed, with Nathalia’s sobs and cries echoing the fatal silence of the palace. She was in another room, but I could hear her painful cries all the way to my room.

I didn’t know what the royal doctor had injected into my hand, but the pain had lessened. I gently cradled my broken hand, wanting to feel relief, but restlessness gnawed at my chest with every passing second.

The air inside and around the palace was thick with a kind of fear that came with the threat of an impending tsunami. A fear of destruction with no escape. All we could do was let the tsunami pass and hope to still be alive once it had.

I was left alone in the room, forgotten now that everyone’s attention was on Nathalia.

The sound of the clock had become much more pronounced and so did the hurried footsteps in the corridors.

I rose from the bed and paced near the dressing table, fidgeting with my fingers as restlessness grew wilder in my chest.

I wanted to go back home to my mother, her diaries. Maybe then I would find some courage.

My head snapped up as my room door creaked open.

This is what I feared the most. He is going to be mad again! He'll hurt me again.

With bated breath, I looked at Nikolai, who wore a deep frown when he entered the room. But his face turned impassive as he took me in.

His eyes widened in a daze as his gaze traveled down my body to my wedding gown, lingering on each detail.

My heart hammered against my ribs.

“I didn’t tell Alpha about my arm. I promise. He… sort of… found out on his own. I didn’t tell him anything about you or the car thing…” I spoke in a breath, well aware of what was coming regardless of my words. He wasn't going to trust me.

He stepped closer and I shut my eyes, my body trembling.

He is going to hit me…

But he stopped. I glanced at him, confused.

His gaze flickered briefly to my breasts, with a sneer he gritted his teeth and stormed out of the room without a word.

I took a quick gulp.

What just happened?

The voices in the corridors grew louder and more rushed. So did my heartbeats.

I looked at the watch. It was ten minutes to midnight.

I could no longer sit back in that room. I walked out of the room. Walking some distance in the corridor, I heard Nathalia whimpers.

“Brother please. Do something. Please… they’ll kill me. You know them, they are devils,” Nathalia clutched Nikolai’s hand, pleading.

She was dressed in a sparkly white wedding gown, adorned in the best of diamonds. Something she always flaunted, something that no longer held value. I lowered my gaze. At least there was someone she could plead with.

I would have to bear it silently. A knot formed in my chest, tightening with Nathalia’s cry for help.

“They are in the pack, you should… prepare yourself, Lia. Stop crying. You need to look… good for them,” Nikolai said, clenching his jaws. An unfamiliar powerlessness lingered in his eyes.

Nathalia broke into silent sobs. She had been crying for hours now. Her eyes were red, her voice hoarse, but she kept pleading sometimes with Luna, sometimes with Nikolai. Both of them could only listen.

“It’s all my mistake.” Nathalia slumped against the wall. “It’s karma. That is why this is happening. It’s all my fault. I broke her hand. It was my idea…”

I widened my eyes, feeling a strangling pain throb in my chest at her words.

“I am the one to blame. It’s all my fault…” she slumped against the doorframe.

As the clock struck midnight, the main clock chimed loudly. Nathalia’s eyes widened, tears streaming down incessantly.

“No, no.” She ran into her room, slamming the door behind her.

A sudden gravity filled the palace as the air crackled with power and dominance. The demon lords, the triplets, had arrived.

Nikolai banged on her door. “Lia! Open the door! Lia! Don’t do this! Shit!” He mumbled, punching the wall helplessly.

For a moment, he remained calm, probably mindlinking with the Alpha. Then, with a forceful push, he opened the door and dragged Nathalia out.

She was no longer screaming. Suppressed sobs were the only sound that escaped her lips.

I watched it all hiding behind the wall.

Nathalia’s teary gaze met mine before she was dragged away, and her face kept flashing in my eyes as if it might remain imprinted in my mind forever.

I pressed my hands over my mouth, breaking into tears. Leaning my head against the wall, I slumped to the floor.

Holding my aching head in my hands, I cried until I could no longer fight the weight of my own conscience.

With the support of the wall, I got up. Lifting the hem of my wedding gown, I ran as fast as I could with my sprained ankles in the empty corridors of the palace.

Everyone had gathered in the ballroom for the marriage ceremony. Even the maids were nowhere to be seen.

I ran through the web of corridors, finally stopping when I reached the backdoor of the ballroom. That was the place from where the bride would enter the hall. I could feel the heavy aura lurk in the air.

Panting, I hesitated for a moment before finally making up my mind.

I saw Alpha waiting with sobbing Nathalia, hidden in the darkness. I didn’t dare glimpse whatever ceremony was going on in the ballroom.

The ballroom had been hastily decorated for the marriage ceremony, yet it looked gothically beautiful.

Dark clouds rumbled in the sky with thunder and lightning, adding to the frenzied ambiance.

The crowd surrounding Nathalia parted to make way for me.

Luna Meesa’s bleary gaze fell on me, but she didn’t react with hostility as usual.

I stepped closer to them.

Nikolai blocked my path to Alpha and Nathalia.

“What are you doing here?” He spoke through gritted teeth. “Came here to enjoy our suffering?”

I met his eyes, my voice unwavering. “Only you can find happiness in someone else’s suffering, not me.”

Nikolai frowned; rage dimmed in his eyes with a glimpse of tears.

Gulping down the lump in my throat, I passed by him and everyone else until I was face to face with Nathalia and Alpha.

I looked into Alpha’s eyes.

“I offer myself to the demon lords. Please let Nathalia go,” I said.

The crowd seemed to gasp in unison. Nathalia stared at me in shock.

“Now enters the bride with Alpha Valdimir,” a voice echoed from within the ballroom.

Everyone stood frozen until Luna Meesa yanked Nathalia away from Alpha.

“Thea… daughter…” Alpha looked at me, his eyes unreadably warm.

Raising my hand over my head, I pulled down the veil over my face. Lifting my right hand as high as I could, I placed my hand over Alpha’s arm.

Alpha didn’t say another word.

I had nothing to lose, and my death would be no one’s loss. I never had a family. No one would cry at my death. I would no longer be the reason for someone’s pain.

If I was lucky, I might meet my mother. Maybe then I could apologise properly for disappointing her. In the end, I couldn’t fulfil her dreams. The very day I had already lost everything that meant something to me.

‘You can live with regrets, but guilt… it kills you every day you live.’

Mother’s words flashed in my head.

Nathalia stumbled to me, proffering the bouquet of Forget-me-nots in my hand with her trembling hands. She dropped her gaze when I looked at her through the veil as I took the bouquet from her hand.

I shut my eyes and inhaled deeply as the lights fell on me.

Alpha held my hand gently as we strutted down the aisle. The ballroom filled with decent claps. My gaze remained fixed on the red carpet beneath my feet.

My steps faltered halfway to the altar.

A dark stain crawled from the hem of my gown all the way up to the fabric on my chest and sleeves, turning the white wedding gown into a black gown. Even the veil over my face had turned black.

A shudder ran down my spine as the Forget-me-nots in my hands turned into a bouquet of red spider lilies. I almost dropped the bouquet, my chest heaving faster.

Steeling my heart and tightening my grip around the bouquet of spider lilies, I made my way to the altar.

Alpha let go of my hand at the foot of the altar.

Three figures stood on the altar.